Business Continuity Planning

Terrorism, natural disasters, or hazardous materials threaten the viability for all types of businesses. With an eye toward business scale, scope, and diversity, Business Continuity Planning: Increasing Workplace Resilience to Disasters, addresses a range of potential businesses from home-based to large corporations in the face of these threats, including the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Information on business continuity planning is easy to find but can be difficult to work through. Terminology, required content, and planning barriers often prevent progress. This volume solves such problems by guiding readers, step-by-step, through such actions as identifying hazards and assessing risks, writing critical functions, forming teams, and encouraging stakeholder participation. In essence, this volume serves as a business continuity planning coach for people new to the process or seeking to strengthen and deepen their ongoing efforts. By engaging stakeholders in a business continuity planning process, businesses can protect employees, customers, and their financial stability. Coupled with examples from recent disasters, planners will be able to inspire and involve stakeholders in creating a more resilient workplace. Designed for both educators and practitioners, Business Continuity Planning: Increasing Workplace Resilience to Disasters walks users through how to understand and execute the essential steps of business continuity planning. Presents evidence-based best practices coupled with standard operating procedures for business continuity planning in a stepwise, user-oriented manner Includes numerous examples and case studies bringing the ideas and procedures to life Provides user-friendly materials and resources, such as templated worksheets, checklists, and procedures with clear instructions, making the volume engaging and immediately operational

If a major event such as a terrorist attack, 7.2 earthquake, tsunami, or hacker attack were to disrupt business operations, would your organization be prepared to respond to the financial, political, and social impacts? In order for your company to be resilient, it must be ready to respond and recover quickly from the impact of such events. Busines

Once considered a luxury, a business continuity plan has become a necessity. Many companies are required to have one by law. Others have implemented them to protect themselves from liability, and some have adopted them after a disaster or after a near miss. Whatever your reason, the right continuity plan is essential to your organization. Business

Powerful Earthquake Triggers Tsunami in Pacific. Hurricane Katrina Makes Landfall in the Gulf Coast. Avalanche Buries Highway in Denver. Tornado Touches Down in Georgia. These headlines not only have caught the attention of people around the world, they have had a significant effect on IT professionals as well. As technology continues to become more integral to corporate operations at every level of the organization, the job of IT has expanded to become almost all-encompassing. These days, it’s difficult to find corners of a company that technology does not touch. As a result, the need to plan for potential disruptions to technology services has increased exponentially. That is what Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is: a methodology used to create a plan for how an organization will recover after a disaster of various types. It takes into account both security and corporate risk management tatics. There is a lot of movement around this initiative in the industry: the British Standards Institute is releasing a new standard for BCP this year. Trade shows are popping up covering the topic. * Complete coverage of the 3 categories of disaster: natural hazards, human-caused hazards, and accidental and technical hazards. * Only published source of information on the new BCI standards and government requirements. * Up dated information on recovery from cyber attacks, rioting, protests, product tampering, bombs, explosions, and terrorism.

This easy workbook format shows managers new to Business Continuity Planning how to quickly develop a basic plan and keep it updated. If you've been tasked with developing a basic business continuity plan and aren't sure where to start, this workbook with sample forms, checklists, templates, and plans will walk you step-by-step through the process. The book is aimed at single/few location companies with up to 250 employees and is more oriented to an office environment, especially where computer operations are critical. It offers a fast, practical approach for small companies with limited staff and time to customize a workable plan and expand it as they grow. Endorsed by The Business Continuity Institute and Disaster Recovery Institute International, it includes these helpful tools: Straightforward, jargon-free explanations emphasize the non-technical aspects of Information Technology/Disaster Recovery planning. Glossary with 120 terms and Appendices with sample risk assessment and risk analysis checklists. Extensive, easy to-use downloadable resources include reproducible worksheets, forms, templates, questionnaires, and checklists for various natural disasters and special hazards such as power outages, boiler failures, bomb threats, hazardous material spills, and civil unrest, along with a checklist for vital records storage. For professional development or college classes the book is accompanied by a set of Instructor Materials.

The Business Continuity playbook provides the background and tools to create, manage, and execute all facets of an organization’s business continuity program (BCP). Business continuity planning is an activity performed daily by organizations of all types and sizes to ensure that critical business functions are available before, during, and after a crisis. This playbook guides the security leader through the development, implementation, and maintenance of a successful BCP. The text begins with a detailed description of the concept and value of business continuity planning, transitioning into a step-by-step guide to building or enhancing a BCP. Its 14 appendices, which include sample forms, templates, and definitions, make it an invaluable resource for business continuity planning. The Business Continuity playbook is a part of Elsevier’s Security Executive Council Risk Management Portfolio, a collection of real world solutions and "how-to" guidelines that equip executives, practitioners, and educators with proven information for successful security and risk management programs. Answers the unavoidable question, "What is the business value of a business continuity program?" Breaks down a business continuity program into four major elements for better understanding and easier implementation Includes 14 appendices that provide sample forms, templates, and definitions for immediate adaptation in any business setting

Protect your company’s finances in the event of a disaster In the face of an environmental or man-made disaster, it’s imperative to have a contingency plan that’s mapped out your corporation’s strategy to minimize the impact on the daily functions or life of the corporation. Successful planning not only can limit the damage of an unforeseen disaster but also can minimize daily mishaps—such as the mistaken deletion of files—and increase a business's overall efficiency. Faster Disaster Recovery provides a 10-step approach for business owners on creating a disaster recovery plan (from both natural and man-made events). Each chapter ends with thought-provoking questions that allow business owners to explore their particular situation. Covers natural events such as earthquakes and floods Provides guidance on dealing with man-made events such as terrorist attacks Offers worksheets to make your contingency plans Includes several examples throughout the book There’s no time like the present to develop a business contingency plan—and this book shows you how.

This publication provides a summary and general guidelines for business continuity planning (BCP). While governments, not-for-profit institutions, and non-governmental organizations also deliver critical services, private organizations must continuously deliver products and services to satisfy shareholders and to survive. Although they differ in goals and functions, BCP can be applied by all organizations.

This book is written for those who are new to Business Continuity planning and also as a reference for practitioner, who are assigned to initiate the BC Planning (BCP) project in their organization. It aims to help you kick off the BCP project in your organization, starting with the need to educate your Executive Management about the purpose, process and importance of BC Management (BCM). It also covers other essential steps including research, developing a BC framework, developing an action plan, establishing a project team, budgeting and scheduling deadlines to ensure that the BC project meets expectations.

PRAISE FOR Business Continuity Management Few businesses can afford to shut down for an extended period of time, regardless of the cause. If the past few years have taught us anything, it's that disaster can strike in any shape, at any time. Be prepared with the time-tested strategies in Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Incident Management Plan and protect your employees while ensuring your company survives the unimaginable. Written by Michael Blyth—one of the world's foremost consultants in the field of business contingency management—this book provides cost-conscious executives with a structured, sustainable, and time-tested blueprint toward developing an individualized strategic business continuity program. This timely book urges security managers, HR directors, program managers, and CEOs to manage nonfinancial crises to protect your company and its employees. Discussions include: Incident management versus crisis response Crisis management structures Crisis flows and organizational responses Leveraging internal and external resources Effective crisis communications Clear decision-making authorities Trigger plans and alert states Training and resources Designing and structuring policies and plans Monitoring crisis management programs Stages of disasters Emergency preparedness Emergency situation management Crisis Leadership Over 40 different crisis scenarios Developing and utilizing a business continuity plan protects your company, its personnel, facilities, materials, and activities from the broad spectrum of risks that face businesses and government agencies on a daily basis, whether at home or internationally. Business Continuity Management presents concepts that can be applied in part, or full, to your business, regardless of its size or number of employees. The comprehensive spectrum of useful concepts, approaches and systems, as well as specific management guidelines and report templates for over forty risk types, will enable you to develop and sustain a continuity management plan essential to compete, win, and safely operate within the complex and fluid global marketplace.

Tools and techniques to make Business Continuity, Crisis Management and IT Service Continuity easy. If you need to prepare plans, test and maintain them, or if you need to set up DR or Work Area Recovery; then this book is written for you. The Business Continuity Desk Reference is written in simple language but is useful to both experienced professionals and newbies. Inside you'll discover: - The key concepts; explained in simple terms.- How to quickly assess your Business Continuity so that you can focus your time where it matters.- How to complete a Business Impact Assessment.- How to write plans quickly that are easy to use in a disaster.- How to test everything so that you know it will work.- How to assess any third party dependencies.- How to make sure that suppliers are robust. - How to meet customer, audit and regulatory expectations.- Get your hands on tools and templates that will make your life easy and make you look great.- Understand what other people do and how to delegate your work to them to make your life easier!

With a pedigree going back over ten years, The DefinitiveHandbook of Business Continuity Management can rightly claim tobe a classic guide to business risk management and contingencyplanning, with a style that makes it accessible to all businessmanagers. Some of the original underlying principles remain thesame – but much has changed. This is reflected in thisradically updated third edition, with exciting and helpful newcontent from new and innovative contributors and new case studiesbringing the book right up to the minute. This book combines over 500 years of experience from leadingBusiness Continuity experts of many countries. It is presented inan easy-to-follow format, explaining in detail the core BCactivities incorporated in BS 25999, Business ContinuityGuidelines, BS 25777 IT Disaster Recovery and other standards andin the body of knowledge common to the key business continuityinstitutes. Contributors from America, Asia Pacific, Europe, China, Indiaand the Middle East provide a truly global perspective, bringingtheir own insights and approaches to the subject, sharing bestpractice from the four corners of the world. We explore and summarize the latest legislation, guidelines andstandards impacting BC planning and management and explain theirimpact. The structured format, with many revealing case studies,examples and checklists, provides a clear roadmap, simplifying andde-mystifying business continuity processes for those new to itsdisciplines and providing a benchmark of current best practice forthose more experienced practitioners. This book makes a massive contribution to the knowledge base ofBC and risk management. It is essential reading for all businesscontinuity, risk managers and auditors: none should be withoutit.

This book will help you to design, develop and conduct tests to ensure that this plan meets all critical business continuity objectives. You will learn how to design, develop, implement and evaluate for main types of tests - Telephone Notification, Walk through, Integrated and Simulation tests. These tests, especially the advanced testing methods of integrated and simulation tests, would empower the organization with capability to recover quickly from any interruption or disaster. Comprehensive instructions, guidance and examples are included.

A Complete Template For Quickly And Easily Creating A Working BCP; including Step-By-Step Business Impact Analysis, Risk Assessment, Disaster Recovery Planning, and more! You do not need to spend $1,000's for consultants or fancy software. This is perfect for small businesses and limited budgets. Includes ready to use editable template. Be Prepared - Don't Let Your Business And Your Customers Suffer Because Of An Unforeseen Disaster. A BCP will enable you to plan ahead, because you want to stay in business in the event that an unforeseen disaster or emergency happens that interrupts your business operations. In situations such as this, you want to know clearly what needs to be done to keep business running. You need to be prepared so that panic does not cause you to make inappropriate and ineffective decisions which will hurt your business. The BCP plan provides a clear roadmap of what to do, when to do it, and who needs to do it. Having this plan in place will give you a valuable tool to guide you through the disaster and provide peace of mind knowing what to do to keep your business running. The template can be customized to your specific needs and provides for documentation of: Section I - Plan Overview and Contact Information 1. Plan Summary 2. Plan Approval 3. BCP Leadership Roles and Responsibilities 4. Internal Contact Information 5. External Contact Information (Customers) 6. External Contact Information (Suppliers and Business Service Providers) 7. Utilities and Facilities Services 8. Financial Services Contact Information 9. Regulatory Agency Contact Information 10. Critical Records and Systems 11. Backup Locations 12. Backup Service Provider and Supplier Information 13. Emergency Services Contact Information Section II - Business Risk Assessment and Impact Evaluation 14A. Business Process Risk Evaluation 14B. Business Process Disruption Impact Evaluation Section III - Pre-Emergency Planning 15. Risk Mitigation 16. Emergency Materials and Supplies Section IV - BCP Plan Activation and Implementation 17. Plan Activation 18. Plan Implementation Section V - BCP Plan Deactivation and Restoration of Normal Operations 19. BCP Plan Deactivation 20. Return To Normal Operations Section VI - BCP Plan Testing Section VII - BCP Plan Maintenance Section VIII - Appendices / Attachments NEW Material for 2nd Edition: BCP Essentials (Key Requirements for Effective BCPs, Common Mistakes and What To Watch Out For) Personal Emergency Plan For Yourself and Your Family

This book will examine business continuity planning as adapted to encompass the requirements of The Health Care Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA. We will examine the typical business continuity planning model and highlight how the special requirements of HIPAA have shifted the emphasis. The layout of this book was designed to afford assistance, hints, and templates to the person or team charged with the task of implementing business continuity planning into a healthcare organization.You will notice that this book does not address Emergency Management (building evacuations and other immediate response procedures), which is outside the scope of the HIPAA regulations.Upon reading and re-reading the HIPAA regulations and the ?Comments and Responses? in the federal register, it becomes quite evident that the ?Contingency Plan? (read Business Continuity Plan) requirements were written by those looking to protect health information data. That being said, many of the examples that I use in this book relate to information technology and disaster recovery (recovery of computer capabilities). What is also important, and that I try to emphasize throughout the book, is that recovering the computer systems of a health care organization will not necessarily get it operational again after a disaster; a multitude of other production and operational components must be present in order to deliver services and products to customers/patients. Where appropriate, I have identified procedures and strategies that are unique to healthcare provider organizations. If not so indicated, it can be assumed that I am referring to healthcare organizations in general.The audience for whom I have designed this book are the people who are responsible for implementing a business continuity plan in a healthcare organization that comes under the scope of the HIPAA regulations. At first reading, the book may appear to be an exact template to be used to design a business continuity plan. What I hope that you will get out of the book (perhaps on a reread once you are into the planning project) is that this is a pencil outline on a canvas and that your insights and knowledge of your healthcare organization will add the color that will make it a masterpiece.What you will notice in this book is that we present an approach that is similar to traditional business continuity planning. This is done purposefully. The basic business continuity planning model looks to protect and/or recover all critical components of production. This model assumes an industry-specific nature not by changing the model itself, but by placing greater emphasis on the protection and recovery of those production resources that characterize that industry. In our view, ?thinking outside the box? is only required if the box was ill-conceived in the first place. Accordingly, this book can also be appropriate for many non-healthcare organizations.This book will include the special precautions and procedures that address the unique concerns of HIPAA, but it will present them along with the other business components in order to emphasis the need to take a holistic approach when constructing and maintaining a business continuity plan.

Every year, nearly one in five businesses suffers a major disruption to its data or voice networks or communications systems. Since 9/11 it has become increasingly important for companies to implement a plan for disaster recovery. This comprehensive book addresses the operational and day-to-day security management requirements of business stability and disaster recovery planning specifically tailored for the needs and requirements of an Information Security Officer. This book has been written by battle tested security consultants who have based all the material, processes and problem- solving on real-world planning and recovery events in enterprise environments world wide. John has over 25 years experience in the IT and security sector. He is an often sought management consultant for large enterprise and is currently a member of the Federal Communication Commission's Homeland Security Network Reliability and Interoperability Council Focus Group on Cybersecurity, working in the Voice over Internet Protocol workgroup. James has over 30 years experience in security operations and technology assessment as a corporate security executive and positions within the intelligence, DoD, and federal law enforcement communities. He has a Ph.D. in information systems specializing in information security and is a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines. He is currently an Independent Consultant. · Provides critical strategies for maintaining basic business functions when and if systems are shut down · Establishes up to date methods and techniques for maintaining second site back up and recovery · Gives managers viable and efficient processes that meet new government rules for saving and protecting data in the event of disasters

"TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 93: Operational and Business Continuity Planning for Prolonged Airport Disruptions provides a guidebook and software tool for airport operators to assist, plan, and prepare for disruptive and catastrophic events that have the potential for causing prolonged airport closure resulting in adverse impacts to the airport and to the local, regional, and national economy. The software tool is available in a CD-ROM format and is intended to help develop and document airport business continuity plans or revise current plans in light of this guidance. The CD is also available for download from TRB's website as an ISO image."--Publisher's description.

A disruption to your critical business processes could leave the entire business exposed. Today's organizations face ever-escalating customer demands and expectations. There is no room for downtime. You need to provide your customers with continuous service because your customers have a lot of choices. Your competitors are standing ready to take your place. As you work hard to grow your business, you face the challenge of keeping your business running without a glitch. To remain competitive, you need a resilient IT infrastructure. This IBM Redbooks publication introduces the importance of Business Continuity in today's IT environments. It provides a comprehensive guide to planning for IT Business Continuity and can help you design and select an IT Business Continuity solution that is right for your business environment. We discuss the concepts, procedures, and solution selection for Business Continuity in detail, including the essential set of IT Business Continuity requirements that you need to identify a solution. We also present a rigorous Business Continuity Solution Selection Methodology that includes a sample Business Continuity workshop with step-by-step instructions in defining requirements. This book is meant as a central resource book for IT Business Continuity planning and design. The companion title to this book, IBM System Storage Business Continuity: Part 2 Solutions Guide, SG24-6548, describes detailed product solutions in the System Storage Resiliency Portfolio.

Business Continuity from Preparedness to Recovery: A Standards-Based Approach details the process for building organizational resiliency and managing Emergency and Business Continuity programs. With over 30 years of experience developing plans that have been tested by fire, floods, and earthquakes, Tucker shows readers how to avoid common traps and ensure a successful program, utilizing, detailed Business Impact Analysis (BIA) questions, continuity strategies and planning considerations for specific business functions. One of the few publications to describe the entire process of business continuity planning from emergency plan to recovery, Business Continuity from Preparedness to Recovery addresses the impact of the new ASIS, NFPA, and ISO standards. Introducing the important elements of business functions and showing how their operations are maintained throughout a crisis situation, it thoroughly describes the process of developing a mitigation, prevention, response, and continuity Management System according to the standards. Business Continuity from Preparedness to Recovery fully integrates Information Technology with other aspects of recovery and explores risk identification and assessment, project management, system analysis, and the functional reliance of most businesses and organizations in a business continuity and emergency management context. Offers a holistic approach focusing on the development and management of Emergency and Business Continuity Management Systems according to the new standards Helps ensure success by describing pitfalls to avoid and preventive measures to take Addresses program development under the standards recently developed by ISO, ASIS and NFPA Provides both foundational principles and specific practices derived from the author’s long experience in this field Explains the requirements of the Business Continuity Standards